"You stick to creating the fan club, and I'll run my love life, or lack of it." I gave her a hug.
"Bye. It was nice to meet you. Thanks for being so kind and not kicking us out." She said.
Bless her. Erica seemed a really nice girl. I hoped she wasn't taking on this fan club thing just to try to get near Zak. Her soul seemed far too good for him. He'd ruin her. But… she was a grown woman and I clearly had no clue about love, so it wasn't my problem.
We said goodbye to the women and made our way home.
Back at the show the following evening we found we'd made it through to the following week's live rounds. So had Seven Sisters and Flame-Grilled Steak.
Stacey
For someone who seemingly had the world at her feet if the stories in the press were anything to go by, I was pretty damn miserable. I'd enjoyed my time alone, but now I was back here waiting for the results to be announced and the amount of people and noise surrounding me was driving me insane. Most of the chatter was coming from my bandmates as Donna almost had them in a frenzy with her excited chatter about how we could win this. She was full of ideas about what we could do next, for which I noted Carmela smiled at her without it reaching her eyes. We did what Carmela told us, end of. She'd been okay with the changes we'd suggested last time, but as she cast her eyes upon Donna once more, I got the impression that the already small Donna was going to get cut down soon.
I only wished I had the same enthusiasm.
We walked out onto the stage for the bit where there was the overexaggerated announcement of who had and hadn't made it to the next round. For the first week we were being whittled from twenty acts to seventeen acts and then two acts a week would leave for the next seven weeks, leaving three acts in the final.
We made it through to the next week. I was happy for the band, but I still had this unsettled feeling inside. After making my excuses to be on my own for a second night in a row, I went home where I took some time trying to work out what was making me feel this way. Okay, I’d realised I needed to focus on myself a little, but that couldn't be it. I had this edgy feeling and thinking about it, I'd had it since Donna had done her contacting of the dead.
I needed answers. She'd supposedly had Jack Brooks talking through her. I wanted to know if Noah had killed him. He'd acted all innocent about him taking my virginity, but he'd been around at that time. He could have been following me.
Taking out my grimoire, I laid it open on a blank page. After crushing sage on it, I dusted the sage off into my wastepaper bin and then I threw down some black soot on the white paper.
"Goddess, I have cleared the page.
And now I've made a mess.
Please come forward to my aid,
And form in an address."
I carried on. "Please tell me the address for Noah Granger, my ex-boyfriend." The soot re-arranged itself, forming a London address, and then the soot soaked into the page, leaving a black written imprint. I thanked the goddess, noted the address, and called a taxi.
It was clear Noah wasn't expecting to see me. Thinking about it, he hadn't been forced to be there, but luckily he was. He rubbed his eyes. "Sorry, Stace. I wasn't expecting you, was I…?" He looked tired. A rare look on a vampire.
"No, you weren't. I wasn't expecting to be here either. Can I come in?" I waited a few seconds.
Noah shook his head. "Yeah, course you can. Sorry, Stace. You need to give me a minute to wake up. I'd nodded off on the sofa. All this rehearsing is making me need a bit more sleep than usual. Come through and make yourself at home while I go throw some water on my face, and then I'll put the kettle on." He paused. "Unless you want something stronger?"
"A coffee would be good. Thanks."
Noah's place wasn't a million miles away from my own studio apartment. We'd both gone for no-frills, places to rest your head décor, and I wondered if it meant that like me, he'd not found anywhere he felt he could call home yet.
After asking how I drank my coffee, he brought two mugs in and placed them on top of a music magazine lying on the coffee table in front of the sofa. I was sitting on the sofa and so Noah took the nearby chair.
"Okay, so let's cut to the chase now. Why are you here, Stace?"
I took a deep breath. "Did you murder Jack Brooks?"
"That's why you came here?" Noah jumped up and started pacing, scrubbing a hand through his hair. As he turned to me there was a tic in his cheek. "You think I'm capable of murder?" He walked over to his window, pulling back the curtains and staring out into the night sky.
"You had yourself turned into a vampire. I don't know what you're capable of." I said truthfully.
Noah sucked in his top lip for a moment. "No, I didn't kill Jack Brooks. That's the truth, but you can choose to believe it or not, seeing as you don't know what I'm capable of." He threw my words back in my face. "And I know he's missing, but are you saying they've found a body?"
"No." I looked up at him. "Please sit down, Noah. I need to talk about this with someone, and you'll understand, being a paranormal."
Slowly he wandered back over, but this time he sat beside me on the sofa. "What's going on?"
I sighed. "My friend and bandmate Donna decided to do some mediumship and she reckoned to be possessed by Jack. He'd got really angry and said it was my fault he was dead. Then she'd been sick and he'd 'left'." I air quoted left.
"And do you trust this Donna? Know that she wasn't winding you up in some way?"
"Yes, I'd trust her with my life. We've been friends for a long time. She's a coven sister. She's just guilty of being a little impulsive. But that's what was said, and with your history, I’d always wondered…"
"If I'd returned and drained him in a revenge plot for everything he'd done to me?" Noah stated.
"Well, yes."
"Stacey, Jack was a dickhead who made my life a misery. A bully. But the worst thing he did to me was name-call me and give me a kicking. Not things that in my book equated with me taking his life. It crossed my mind to give him a good kicking back at first, and I was a hell of a lot stronger, but I couldn't be bothered. Once I’d been turned, I had no interest in losers like Jack Brooks, who made themselves feel better by picking on others."
"And loser girlfriends." The words were out before I could stop them.
"No." Noah said vehemently. "I'll keep saying this over and over again until the day someone puts a stake through my heart. I let you go because I was a danger to you. Have you any idea how your sweet, virginal blood sang to me? As a newly-turned vampire I would have fucked you raw and then drained you dry, Stacey. I'm not messing. You were in complete and utter danger from me. Just going to sixth form I had to feed myself on bottles of blood to the point of wanting to be sick in case I caught a passing glimpse of you. Rex was my main wingman, because as a shifter he could hold me down if it looked like I might bolt towards you."
"But you hardly ever looked my way."